Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 12 No. 6 | June 2020

8 Inside Hokie Sports by Jimmy Robertson As the effects of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic remain in effect—with people staying at home, practicing social distancing when they leave their houses, and in most cases, wearing masks in public—Justin Hamilton finds himself gradually losing influence in the Hamilton household. In a recent Zoom interview with Jon Laaser, the Virginia Tech defensive coordinator revealed that the Hamilton family hierarchy started with wife Brittany, then his 4-year-old daughter, then his 6-year-old son, then the dog, and finally him. So needless to say, Hamilton finds comfort in online meetings with his players whenever he gets the chance and was quite ecstatic when those in charge within Virginia Tech Athletics allowed the football program to begin small group workouts June 1. After all, football is the one area where his input really matters. “That’s what my wife tells me,” Hamilton laughed. “She tells me, ‘That’s the one place where you have any say so.’” Joking aside, Hamilton probably finds it hard to be patient these days. He took over the role as defensive coordinator after Bud Foster’s retirement following the 2019 season, and he’s anxious to build this 2020 Virginia Tech defense—one that figures to be a combination of the lunch-pail tradition and Hamilton’s new-age ideas, along with those incorporated from a new staff. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has delayed construction of the group. The pandemic robbed Tech of 15 vital spring practices, taking away important on-field player evaluations and meaningful position meetings. Hamilton really wanted to observe a certain group of players, particularly those who took redshirt seasons in 2019. What position does Amare Barno play? Where does J.R. Walker fit? Can Josh Fuga and Norell Pollard be rotation players, or more, at defensive tackle? Hamilton knows that this bunch works hard and learns quickly, but one never truly knows the extent of their talent until seeing them on the field in game-like situations. For most of these young men, their last meaningful snap of game action came in the fall of 2018. “The difficult thing for our kids is that they, like us, are creatures of habit,” Hamilton said. “They want to be out there. They want to be coached. They want to see how they’re getting better, or hear how they can get better. They want to compete. That’s the part that is frustrating. We may have to condense what we do, depending on the time that we get, and if that’s the case, that’s fine because what is most important is that we have 11 guys that can go and execute a call.” Speaking of calls, Hamilton hasn’t made a call yet as Tech’s defensive coordinator. Spring football practice would have been the perfect time to become in sync with his staff, which includes new coaches Bill Teerlinck, Darryl Tapp, Ryan Smith and Tracy Claeys. Spring scrimmages serve as great opportunities for coaches to get in some game-like work, too, calling blitzes and coverages and adjusting. However, COVID-19 squelched those opportunities as well. Of course, all programs can make the same complaints about not being able to evaluate players this spring. Many feature new coaches, too, all trying to implement their ideas and systems now without the benefit of practices and meetings. Tech, though, holds an advantage over most programs in that it returns so many starters. Ten starters alone return on defense, and that also makes things somewhat easier for Hamilton. He can implement a lot of Foster’s schemes from the past couple of years and reasonably expect the players to execute those at a high level. “That’s the blessing for us in our program,” Hamilton admitted. “We have guys that have not only played a lot of snaps, but also are quick learners. In my experience, whether it be as a player or as a coach, your younger players learn the most from the older players. They learn a lot from the coach, but I’ve seen it where young players learn the quickest from the veteran players. Veteran players learn the most from the coach. That’s been really good, and I think, too, with these guys being in contact with each other outside of our presence, they’re having side meetings where the veteran players are discussing what we just discussed as coaches, which can be good.” In the end, there is a lot that remains unknown—about this defense, about the new coaches and new roles, and about the upcoming season. COVID-19 continues to make permanent plans an impossibility. Meticulous, smart and a hard worker, Hamilton should be able to adjust. His players fortunately share those same qualities. Hamilton said that one constant always will be the unit’s lunch-pail mentality. Tech’s program retired the lunch pail, but that mentality will remain forever. Hopefully, it leads to success this season—whenever the season actually kicks off. Hamilton, Tech defense hope experience and work ethic enough to overcome secondary effects of pandemic